The Old Toll Road Again

A walk in late afternoon to post a letter, along the old toll road and past the Methodist chapel. A warm, cloudy day, with occasional shafts of sunlight in the ditches, illuminating cow parsley, ragged robin, bluebells, wood anemones. The toll road is slowly disappearing into the undergrowth once again, with grasses and larger plants recolonising the blaze - plane-crash trail - of mud through the woods. The deep caterpillar track marks are still visible, but they are slowly disappearing under foliage. Many of the trees hacked by the water board had blossom on them a week ago and have now leaved (not left) even though they are lying horizontal to the ground. This reminded me of Richard Mabey's comments in 'Beechcombing' about tidying up woodland to chime more with how we think it should look. Soon it might be impossible to walk this way to the post box, and the old road will have vanished into the woods once again.